The Daily Colonist, September 20, 1914

#dailycolonist1914 - News out of Victoria, British Columbia, 100 years ago today.

It's Sunday in 1914, and there are some interesting things in the paper and the magazine section today, both from a 1914 point of view and a 2014 point of view:

• [I'll begin with a 2014 side-note. I'm in constant awe of how the photo layouts, especially the ones on the front page are always connected by hand-drawn art-nouveau borders and captioned with hand lettering. This was someone's job.]
• An account of a million men on both sides fighting in half-flooded trenches, unable to advance because of enemy entrenchments, stopping to rest out of sheer exhaustion. [At this early stage of the war trench warfare is new and the old-guard officers have no experience in dealing with it. These sorts of spontaneous cease-fires, reaching an apex with the famous Christmas Cease-Fire to come in a few months become a real problem for both sides as the cannon-fodder learn that if they don't shoot, the other guy's cannon fodder won't shoot back, making the war difficult for the rich bastards running it.]
• It comes out that during the seemingly unstoppable German advance on Paris, while the Germans were confident of winning, a plan to break up the British Empire was proposed to the Americans where Canada would be given to the United States to administer. [When in reality we simply had to wait another 80 years for Brian Mulroney signed us over to to George H. W. Bush with NAFTA, a meagre 12 years after becoming fully independent of Westminster. Now, exactly 20 years after that Harper has signed us over to China with FIPA.]
• Komagata Maru is still having troubles. Currently anchored in Kobe, Japan, notice has been received that men on board are forbidden to disembark in Hong Kong even though that's where most boarded, and the ship's owner does not want to take them to Calcutta. 
• The children's page has a photograph of four of the daughters of Czar Nicholas, "undoubtedly four of the most charming princesses in Europe." [It is creepy knowing that they will all be executed by Bolsheviks in less than four years.]
• September is new car month and there are lots of ads for new 1915 models. The ones that really stand out are two half-page ads for the Russell Motor Car Company. [A wholly Canadian company, a branch of CCM, the bicycle and hockey equipment manufacturer. CCM stopped making cars in 1916, so these 1915 models are the last, but who in Canada has not had a CCM bicycle or CCM hockey gear?] 
• A few other ads and illustrations that caught my eye. 

http://www.britishcolonist.ca/dateList.php?year=1914